There’s nothing more that she loves than working with students in her English class at Arbor Preparatory High School and talking endlessly about books. The time she spends as an instructional coach allows her to help her fellow teachers find little ways to help make their classroom better or make their lives a little easier, but there’s a part of her that always think she should be with her students.
The instructional work is one-on-one teaching of another kind, but the end goal remains the same – to help develop students’ knowledge, skills, and moral strength.
“In both cases the things I love are when you see the fruit of that,” she said. “When I see a teacher who we tweaked something and now their class is so much smoother, they’re so much happier and the students are learning more and just to see those payoffs is incredible.”
One area Hogan helps other teachers is planning. Teachers who were planning one day at a time soon were flourishing with a mapped-out unit plan under her tutelage.
“All the sudden it was like everything clicked in, the whole unit made sense and the day made sense,” she said.
Hogan is in her 18th year teaching high school and eighth year at Arbor Prep, which outperforms the district in all subjects. She also serves as a college adviser for students and prepares them for college-level English courses by introducing them to academic research websites and stressing the university library as a valuable resource.
“My students will have every tool they need to be successful in that class, and that's something that is really important to me that you have to know how to use the websites for research that you’re going to use in college,” she said. “Let’s play with those right now so that way they’re not going to get there and be overwhelmed and not be successful.”
Seeing her students blossom is about as good as it gets for Hogan. She remembers during an AP literature class watching them dissect the concept and run with the discussion to the point where she became a proud bystander.
“It was such a moment of pride,” she said. “It was such a great moment and I felt so proud of them and proud that we had managed to work together to get to a place where they were able to do that. It was really special.”
Perhaps even more so than the academic wisdom she imparts, Hogan wants students to know that they are loved and that she is there if they need to talk whether they are in her class or have moved on.
“I always tell my students that at the end of the year, they’re going to have learned a whole bunch of things, but what I hope they know is that I love them,” she said.
Keep up the excellent work, Ms. Hogan!
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About Arbor Preparatory High School
Arbor Preparatory High School is a tuition-free, public charter school in Ypsilanti, Michigan, serving students in ninth through 12th grade. It is part of the National Heritage Academies network, which includes more than 100 tuition-free, public charter schools serving more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across nine states. For more information, visit nhaschools.com.
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